Y thoughts

Joining the YMCA is a big deal for me. It has changed our morning routine but it is a step in the right direction with my hate/hate relationship with exercise. For lack of more eloquent prose on my first week of Y experiences, here they are in bulletpoint.

Water aerobics - I joined the Y specifically for the year-round indoor swimming pool. I decided to try the water aerobics class only to find 95% of the class is over the age of 60. This includes the "deep enders", the group of retirees that hang out in the "deep" end (they can still stand) who exercise 50% of the time and socialize the rest of the time when the exercise gets too tough.

Low impact - I want to swim because I wanted low impact exercise. I found that the water aerobics still has impact, especially when you're jogging in the water on a solid concrete floor. May decide to do laps instead.

MYO lap swimming - Although half the pool is set aside for family/leisure swim, no one really uses that side of the pool. So some people make it a makeshift lap swim pool. Did that today and it seemed to work well for me. I have yet to make it early enough in the morning for the real lap swim. But with only 3 lanes and 2 of them being medium fast and fast swim, I'm thinking maybe MYO lap swimming is more comfortable for me.

Tobey swimming - Since the leisure swim side of the pool is open in the morning, I've decided that if I've exercised enough in the week, I can take Tobey swimming once a week on Friday. He was clinging on to me for dear life the whole time last Friday but today announced that maybe next time he can learn to swim by himself. That's our goal!

Eli swimming - Out of fairness, I feel like I should take Eli swiming sometime too (and he is NOT afraid of the water). But, he's also a morning pooper which makes me hesitant to take him in with me. Nothing like being the cause of a multi-hour shutdown of the pool because your kid made a "floater".

Family locker room - Although the Y rule is that kids over 5 must use the same sex locker room (i.e., no boys in the women's locker room and vice versa), I'd like to personally bump that age down to 3. Maybe Tobey won't remember seeing women buck naked (many of them the 60+ crowd) but I find myself wanting to limit his visual exposure to the locker room scene nonetheless. I'm surprised he didn't ask more questions from his first experience. Maybe he saw so much, he didn't know where to start. Next time, we're trying the family locker room that I didn't know about the first time.

Lap swimming - For the sake of time as well as a better workout for me, I think I'll nix the water aerobics class and do laps for 30 minutes. Today I did that and found I could beat the shower rush and I had time to do hair and makeup before picking up the kids. Oh yeah, and I think I had a harder workout.

Shower routine - I'm finally getting my packing and showering routine down so that I don't drip water all over the floor (get extra towel from front desk to put on the floor) and I am the most efficient at showering (leave my toiletries in the shower area before so that it's there when I get out of the pool). I still need to work on my packing an extra plastic bag for wet stuff and finding my missing flip flop so I don't have to go around barefoot (yuck).

Childcare - None of this is possible without childcare, which is generously free for the first 90 minutes. But boy when they mean 90 minutes, they mean 90 minutes, as I warned by every childcare worker on my first day (honestly, I put down a time too early because I didn't see the clock but they didn't seem to care).

Eli's childcare - Eli's childcare is manned by two Filipino (?) women who aren't the most smiley or chatty bunch. That makes me nervous that I did something to tick them off (being late for pickup the first day? always asking them to feed Eli breakfast?) but they did say how good a boy Eli was. Gotta keep the childcare workers happy. My kid is in their hands for 90 minutes each day.

No poopy diapers - Apparently today, Eli's childcare went looking for me all around the Y (I think at the time I was in a curtained shower stall but I'm convinced they think I ditched the kids and went out for breakfast). Eli pooped and they don't change diapers. Why they ask for a stocked diaper bag then, I don't know. But would they really drag me out of the pool or shower and make me go change Eli's diaper? I wouldn't doubt the two women in Eli's childcare -- those women mean business.

Sick policy - The other day I witnessed one of the childcare workers going to find a mom regarding her kid. I was hoping it was because one of the kids was coughing up a lung, clearly still had a cold, and maybe they'd make her take him out. But now after this morning's poopy diaper experience, maybe they were just looking for a mom to change a poopy diaper.

Tobey's childcare - Tobey likes going to the Y because the older kids get to go out to the playground. I'm glad for it because it soothes my guilt for never taking the kids to the park.

Guilty pleasure - Seems kind of counter productive but once in a while, I'll treat me and Tobey to McD's hashbrowns after the Y. But sometimes we're too late (10:30+). I'm vowing to limit the hashbrown treat to no more than once a week. The waistline can't afford to do more.

Wow, all those thoughts happened in a week of trial membership. My final thought: today I joined for good and was hoping to get my real membership card. But alas, the computer camera was down and they couldn't take my picture. Bummer, because since I got my locker room routine down so I have enough time to do hair and makeup, it was actually a good hair day.